In some situations, an automated business process requires input from a human so that the business application can complete the business process. For example, a business process may involve processes related to employee management, corporate and accounting practices (business practices), general business controls, and the like. The conventional strategy provides a user interface (“UI”) for the human to interact within a business process application when communicating with the business process application itself. However, the human user may be unfamiliar with the business process application UI, causing delays, confusion and mistakes. Further, the user likely needs to switch contexts, e.g., switching from working within an email client to the business application, to complete the work in the business application. Further yet, the user is limited to working in circumstances where the business application itself can be accessed and thus is unable to work in a broader range of circumstances, e.g., working offline or with limited connectivity to a corporate network.
Such problems may invoke several types of latency into the business process. For example, individuals unfamiliar with the business application UI may spend additional time learning how the UI is organized and acquiring the requisite information needed for interacting with the UI. While a business application may provide a UI to the user to collect user input, the user is often required to open the application, including but not limited to navigation to a website, to complete the requested action. Unless the user opens the application frequently, delays (or latency) occur in providing the necessary input. As a result, the process instance of the business application may cease until it receives the necessary input.
Latency is also caused by the user not knowing that he/she is required to provide input to a business process. Further, even if the business application sends a message to the user whose input is required to alert him/her of the need for input, delays may still occur because the user is required to switch contexts as discussed above. Further, a delay may result from the need to navigate to a website outside of the email context in which he/she received the message in the first instance, also discussed above. Users may not want to take the time to navigate to a website outside of their email client UI and may delay providing the requested action.
Additionally, the user may not always have connectivity to the business application when the user wants to provide a response. For example, a mobile user may have greater connectivity to his/her email server than to corporate business applications and may complete work on his/her laptop with only occasional, or limited, connectivity to the user's corporate network.
These problems are exacerbated when multiple business applications require input from multiple end users. Although specific problems have been addressed in this Background, this disclosure is not intended in any way to be limited to solving those specific problems.